New Book on Space Colonies

> Again, I think our only hope is a renewed Space race with the
Chineese. THAT would be the political motivation to spend the monies
and pursue technology to WIN this new challenge. Also for
homesteaders that are sponsored by government "space" grants akin to
the old Spanish land grants, English land grants, and historically
similar government motivations for occupying new territory to insure
there is possession.

I've been seeing this bugaboo about the Chinese space program
popping up quite a bit lately.

Considering that China is really a very poor country, is going
through a very painful industrial modernization effort, has hundreds
of millions of poor peasants in the countryside far removed from
coastal modernization efforts, has millions of displaced workers
from inefficient state factories, is facing an ongong and expensive
modernization of the PLA and PLAN, and is dealing with the issue of
lack of environmental stewardship that is slowly creeping up and
biting them in the ass, I don't think that China will emerge as the
motivating factor for a re-energized US space program.

Further, the export oriented nature of the Chinese economy and with
the Yuan tied to the US dollar, I believe that China will
increasingly face problems in maintaining its growth rate. Consider
that if you are earning $20,000 per year and then can earn $25,000
the next year. You've just grown your earning by 25%. Consider the
same $5,000 gain if you're earning $100,000. Aggregate economic size
does matter and China will face problems. Furthermore, as the
disparity between Chinese and Western living standards continues to
close, the appeal of low Chinese wages will diminish their
competitive advantage.

Also, look at the technological source of China's space program -
Russia. While China has internally developed much of the technology,
it is based on Russian designs and is not current art.

I could go on but I think I've conveyed my concerns sufficiently to
characterize my skepticism about China becoming a dominant space
power and fulfilling the orbital development schemes we all hold
dear.

On a closing note I don't doubt that China has every intention of
embarking on a lunar program and may even seriously be considering a
permanent lunar presence, but consideration and reality are two
different things. I believe that their space program is motivated by
national prestige issues rather than strategic economic and
technological issues. Lastly, if the Apollo program was too rich for
the US government to fund, how is it that commentators believe that
China will be able to foot the bill when it is confronting the
litany of issues I referenced earlier in this post?

TangoMan